Decompression
I am BACK. I forgot how hooked I am on this… Which is good because I have 5 bikes here. YES FIVE. And I logistically I cannot leave until I sell at least 3 of them. I will most likely leave via KHS bicycle pulling a BOB trailer north towards General Sherman, Frisco, and Oregon.
So my last few days in Panama where good. Saturday I spent feeling not so well, with sore holes in my mouth, and spitting up blood. I did some shopping, checked out girls, and spent some City Time. The Lacoste Alligator shirts here cost 15X what they did in Guatemala, though it is possible that they weren’t genuine…
Riding to the airport is classic, ignoring the no bicycle signs and hopping on the sparsely traveled toll road, avoiding the toll booth, and waving to the attendant. When I get to the airport I ‘can’t put my bike on like that’ unless I pay them $25 dollars. This gets my bike shrink-wrapped, and then I am told to go down and take it through the yellow gate… which also happens to lead out to the runway. So here I am, having not passed through any security, with a giant plastic wrapped box, on the runway. Security anyone? Ah well, it works for them.
Returning Culture Shock: Everything is very clean. After my first relaxing night in San Pedro, I take the “Rapid Metro” through downtown LA, and am overwhelmed by how clean, trim and tidy everything is, and how ugly giant billboards are. Then we stop in Compton.
1h15 and I reach Union Station, 15 minutes behind my connection to Bako, and chill with Panhandlers who unfortunately speak a language I understand. The wino sitting across from me is complaining to his buddy about his ‘terrible, terrible, day’… over and over. ‘Only $15, I will have to go out again for cigarettes’. ‘I only got out there at 1:30’. A look at the clock on the wall, confirms that if his commute to ‘out there’ was ZERO minutes, this bum is making $5 tax free dollars an hour, on a ‘terrible terrible day’.
Crazy, Lazy times.
Previous definition of ‘clean’ clothes: washed in a gas station sink, daily, or water pail in the evening, and dried bungeed to the back of a bicycle, riding though dust, being past by un-eco diesels, and then stuffed into a tropical waterproof bag…
Yeah well they still smelled a little musty. Err. They always smelled really musty. I was dirty, and stank.
It is a bummer not to be of above average height anymore. Walking around the Albertsons, I’ve got these HUGE American women towering over me. I am receiving weekly marriage proposals - from mothers on behalf of their 17 year old daughters.
Houses are clean, the walls go all the way up to the roof, things are a little more sanitary, the shower has hot water, and I am not quite as in touch with nature. ie the bats don’t aren’t flying around at night time eating bugs.
A week after my tooth operation, I was gargling with salt water, and found a part of the ‘we will break it’ tooth swooshing around in my mouth.
Last weekend I went on the group ride and suffered like never before. I guess you could say that the high end is missing a little.
3 of the other bike tourers we met on the trip have e-mailed me in the past 2 weeks saying that they have been robbed – bikes and gear all stolen.
Running in the enhanced, streamlined, and sterile neighborhood of Dana Point I had a water bottle thrown at me (1/2 full) from a 5 series Beemer. That hasn’t happen since the white kids driving rental cars in Cabo.
